[Vision2020] I'm going to make you an offer . . .

[Joan Opyr]

You’ve acquired some interesting new supporters, Doug.  Your employees, Nate 
and Ben, have been joined by Rod Johnson, whose “Diversity 1, 2, 3” posts 
skate all the way from the white man’s burden to Pat Buchanan.  Your blades 
are rusty and you’re on thin ice, but thy Rod and thy staff, I suppose they 
comfort you.

I’ve been taking a list holiday for the past few days, so I hope you’ll all 
forgive me for returning to an earlier post – the one in which Doug evokes 
the spirit of Bubba, that mythical white Southern Everyman.  What’s the 
matter with Bubba, Doug asks?  Why does everyone get an ethnicity except 
him?  When will there be a Bubba Student Center?  A university Office of 
Bubba Affairs?  A Bubba initiative?

Though I hate to answer a question with a question (feeling as I do that I 
should begin with the words “Ah so, Grasshopper”) I think it’s fair to ask 
why you are unable to come to grips with the fact that Bubba already enjoys 
a broader perspective than the one you offer?  Look at him — he lives in a 
vibrant region, and an increasingly urban one.  The modern South is home to 
high tech, to manufacturing, to finance.  Atlanta and Raleigh, Charlotte and 
Greensboro — these are large metropolitan cities.  Sherman did his best, but 
we swept up the ashes and blew away the smoke a long, long time ago.  As a 
consequence of our fortuitous defeat, Bubba is doing quite well, thank you 
very much.  He doesn’t need nostalgic fabrications.  He doesn’t need to 
pretend that the antebellum South was a noble agrarian society — peaceful, 
Christian, and racially harmonious until it was destroyed by the wicked 
predations of the Unitarian Church, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and a couple of 
old Quakers with time on their hands.  Bubba doesn’t need empty lies because 
the truth has set him free.  He knows that the South described in ‘Southern 
Slavery: As It Was’ isn’t so much ‘Gone with the Wind’ as ‘Blowing It Out 
Your Backside.’  Bubba is now a Renaissance Redneck.

The South I grew up in was multicultural.  It was wonderfully diverse.  
Southerners haven’t always treated one another well or fairly, but black and 
white, red and brown, Francophone, Anglophone, and Spanish-speaking, we have 
always lived in close proximity, one ethnicity to another.  At long last, 
we’re learning to make the most of what has always been one of our virtues: 
variety.  We’re learning to embrace difference instead of fearing it, to 
understand that you don’t have to be the same to be equal.  The last thing 
we need is a League of Ma-roons dedicated to the premise that everything of 
value and merit — indeed, the whole of Southern culture itself — is uniquely 
and solely Anglo-Celtic.  Were the Irish important in the South?  Were the 
English and the Scots?  Of course.  But we both know that “Anglo-Celtic 
heritage” is code talk for “mighty whitey.”  Follow the links on any League 
of the South web-site, and it won’t take you long to find the fat boys in 
sheets.  (You know why their hats are so pointy?  Because they’re cut to fit 
their heads.)

There is no defense for the League of the South.  There is no defense for 
slavery.  And the reason I don’t weep over the Confederate dead is because 
Civil War or no Civil War, they’d all still be dead today.  If you can’t 
find closure after 130 years, you’re watching too much of the History 
Channel.  Switch over to Sci-Fi.  Try a little Buffy.  Watch Berman and 
Berman: For Women Only.  That ought to be an eye-opener.

“Now repeat to yourself it’s just a show, I should really just relax,”

Joan Opyr (and Tom Servo)

Note to Nate and Ben:  I used to think you were Moscow’s answer to Edsel 
Ford and Liza Minelli.  Now, I think I might have underestimated you — 
you’re beginning to bear a striking resemblance to Michael and Sonny 
Corleone.  Just in case, I’m going to stop in at Bookpeople buy a copy of 
‘The Godfather.’  It’s never too soon to start thinking about the future.

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